Our D.I.Y. World

When December 2013 ran out, and along with it our calendar, I got to work on constructing my own page for January. As I measured the blocks that would become days, and pulled out our magazines, scissors, and colored Sharpies, I had one of those fleeting thoughts: In a world with no Wal-Mart.

I realize many of you would welcome such a world. But it would be an honest assessment to say that Wal-Mart is a place we all like to make fun of, but which is actually very convenient, and actually fairly good.* The moment you find yourself making your own calendars by hand (even though this way, you’re able to make it an American/Ethiopian calendar—it being always handy to know what month and date and holiday it is in “Ethiopian time”), or meandering through dirt roads at night for a half hour, asking the kids where the house with the cows is—you need milk—(even though the stars are glaring and beautiful on this night, and you’re holding the hands of kids you don’t know as they guide you from house to house, thinking Wow, I am a walking Peace Corps magazine) because there’s nowhere you can “swing by” to pick up things as simple as a calendar and milk, that’s the moment you’ll be missing the convenience of places like Wal-Mart. CVS. Target. As romantic as cow-searching by starlight truly is.

Our do-it-yourself projects usually have the potential for two things: 1. Making us miss America’s conveniences, and 2. Making us think, Well, who needs all that? I have two hands. 

We’d like to welcome you into our world of using our two hands and two hours, when we can’t swing into any parking lots for easy errands.

A frame for an Andrew Luttrull original

We bought a hideous wooden frame from a frame shop on our main road. It maybe took them five minutes to make; the wood was still splintering. Not in the, “Well, this is cutely rustic” way. Trust me. So we pulled out all the pretty fabric I brought along from America, and some yarn. And after about an hour, Daniel had created this lovely frame. I do plan on bringing it back with us, by the way.

Warm hats for a cold trip in a hot place

We don’t have winter-wear here, as you might’ve guessed. Adwa is hot. A sweatshirt is the most we’ll ever need. But we didn’t anticipate we’d be taking a very cold trip up a very tall mountain, sleeping with the wind. Next Tuesday we leave for a 5-day trek through the Simien Mountains, to summit Ras Dashen, Ethiopia’s highest mountain (and the eastern peak of an enormous volcano, according to Wikipedia). At an elevation of 4,550 metres (14,928 ft), we’re going to be freezing up there. And while I admit we’ll keep our hands warm thanks to Lauren and Wal-Mart (I admit I haven’t attempted glove-making), I’ve made us each a winter hat, and am now making Daniel a scarf. Next week we’ll be thankful for my Waco ladies who taught me to crochet, and to love it. (If you are concerned for our safety—especially when you hear There will be men with shotguns guarding them on the trek, to protect them from the wild baboons—fear not. Remember our post about climbing Adwa’s Soloda Mountain? The same Joe who saved our lives from plummeting down a cliff is the one leading this trip.)

Curry Powder

We rotate the same fifteen to twenty meals here—which is somewhat hard for me. I pride myself on making at least one new recipe a week, back home. In America we’re constantly trying new dishes, complicated, in-depth dishes, for the sake of adventure and accomplishment, and because we know that half of our favorite meals we probably haven’t tasted yet. There’s a world of cuisine to experience in a lifetime; I just can’t stick to the same rotated recipes. But here we have no choice. The recipes we stick to, though, are good ones. Pizza on the stovetop. German spaetzles and sauerkraut. Gnocchi. Minestrone.

When we discovered vegetable curry here—it was glorious. One of those “favorite meals we hadn’t previously tried,” knocking us off our feet. And now it’s a weekly favorite: one we’ll certainly continue making in the states. When we couple this with our homemade yogurt (you should try that too), it’s heavenly.

But we can’t get curry powder here. We can get it from the capital, but at a price we’re not willing to pay. So every two months Daniel replenishes our homemade blend, which our friend Christine described as, “India in a bottle! It smells amazing, way better than the store stuff.” The recipe is below, if you’re interested.

The irony: it is way cheaper for us here to buy all the whole, dusty spices from burlap sacks on Saturday Market Days, and grind them ourselves, rather than buy a 60-birr pre-made container in Addis Ababa. At home, though, it’s cheaper to go with the pre-made. If you throw a bunch of spices in your cart that begin with the word “whole”—and you need four or five of them, your grocery bill jumps up at breakneck speed. So, in case you’re wondering: Yes, we plan on bringing lots and lots of this home with us, to last us awhile for cheap. The difficulty: it takes Daniel a little over an hour to pound all of these spices by hand with a heavy, iron rod.

We’re eating the good stuff for cheap here, in general. Organic vegetables. Organic peanut butter. Eggs straight from the chicken. Free-range chickens. Homemade curry powder. We’re getting spoiled for two years, in terms of cost. We’ll likely have to go home and return to the cheap stuff (even though Jif now tastes like straight, salty, SWEET candy to us).

Recipe for Curry Powder

from http://www.bespokespices.com/curry-powder-recipe.html

(makes 7-8 Tbsp)

3 Tbsp coriander seeds (cilantro seeds)

2 Tbsp cumin seeds

10 green cardamom pods

10 cloves

2 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Lightly toast the whole coriander, cumin and cloves to release lovely flavor & aroma.

    * Break open the cardamom pods and extract the seeds

    * Grind these along with the other whole ingredients in your spice grinder

    * Sieve into a bowl

    * Mix in the pre-ground powders

    * Store in a cool dark place in an airtight jar. Use within 3 months.

Recipe for Vegetable Curry

1 onion, chopped

1 cup water or stock

1 Tbs flour

1 cup diced vegetables (potatoes, carrots)

salt & pepper

½ Tbs curry powder (we use 1 Tbs)

½ cup tomatoes, diced

3 Tbs milk

1 Tbs corn starch

Brown onions in oil. Add flour and water/stock. Add vegetables, salt, pepper, and curry powder. In small bowl, mix tomatoes, milk, and corn starch, then add to pot with vegetables. Simmer 45 minutes until veggies are tender, and sauce is thick and glossy. Serve over rice or noodles. (We serve it over Persian rice: turmeric-spiced rice baked in an oiled pan on the stovetop for 45 minutes after already done cooking, to result in crunchy, delicious rice. Courtesy of our dear Persian-American friend we met in Adwa.)

Liquid Soap! Soap in a bottle!

When my sister gave us a bottle of Bath & Body Works “garden herbs” liquid hand soap to bring back with us, she didn’t realize the magnitude of the gift. Neither did I. After returning from the states last summer, I hesitated awhile before bringing out the soap. The sooner we use it, the sooner it’s gone, I thought: my same mentality pertaining to every single care package. And the inevitable eventually happened: the soap ran out. But, I thought. But, but, but. We still have a bottle! I started looking up tutorials and recipes for how to make your own liquid soap.

It was certainly an experiment. It took a few days of stirring and waiting and testing to get the same original batch the correct consistency. But once it was “just right”(we learn our best practices from Goldilocks), it filled a soap bottle, a large container, and a large empty mayo jar. One teensy tiny 6-birr bar of Ethiopian soap has now lasted us four months and counting; it’s a sudsy fish-and-loaves miracle. One that, for the sake of cost, I’ll continue to practice in the states. Why not make your money go further when you can?

The recipe is fairly simple, if you want it:

Recipe for Liquid Hand Soap

Time Required: 10 minutes of hands-on time (not true, unless you correctly guess quantities first try. Granted, your soap packaging would be in English and would likely list the weight.)

1. Grate or finely chop a bar of soap (about four ounces of soap).

2. Bring four cups of water to a boil.

3. Turn off the heat, and add the soap. Stir to melt the soap. Continue stirring until the mixture is fully combined. At this point the mixture will be very liquidy.

4. Allow the mixture to cool for at least 15 minutes. Then, stir again. At this point, the soap should be slightly thicker.

5. Allow to cool for another several hours or overnight.

6. Stir to check the consistency. If it seems too liquidy, reheat and add more soap. If it seems too thick, reheat and add more water.

7. Once you're satisfied with your soap, add a few drops of essential oil and coloring, if desired.

8. Then, pour your soap into dispensers, and enjoy.

Tips:

   1. Want to make a bigger or smaller batch? Just use one cup of water for every ounce of soap.

   2. This recipe stores well. Make up a big batch, a few times a year.

   3. Results will vary depending on the type of soap used. Tweak the recipe until it meets your needs.

   4. For a super-smooth consistency, run the finished soap through a blender before pouring into dispensers.

How to Open a Wine Bottle Without a Corkscrew

We learned this trick from our friend Aaron, during Peace Corps Pre-Service Training. We’ve been doing it ever since.

This did go badly, once (on Thanksgiving). I think it’s because our friend was using my very-torn-up Toms. And Toms have very little heel support, to begin with. (The heel strength is key.) The bottle broke open and cut his hand, and wine was everywhere. Thankfully, Tyler didn’t need stitches. We need to stick to dress shoes.

How it’s done: Place the bottom of the bottle in the heel of the shoe. Hold the neck of the bottle securely with your right hand, and the toe of the shoe with your left. Knock the heel of the shoe against something firm, like a concrete wall. After some pounding, the cork makes its way out.

Sure, it makes wine-drinking a little less elegant. A little more dangerous (which some wine-drinkers may covet). But, all the same, at the end of it all, what you have is an open bottle of wine.

Sidenote: Ethiopian wine is really, really, very awful. Half the time we buy it, it’s already vinegar. So your at-home wine-in-shoe experiments will come out better than ours, every time.

Pumpkin Puree

I love holiday traditions. Carving pumpkins, dying eggs, frosting snowman cookies—these are some of my favorite activities. I’m going to guess that the first time I make a gingerbread house (cough, next Christmas), I’m going to love that just as much.

I thought pumpkins were for looking at. For jack-o-lantering beecha (only). Not so!

I have a new addiction at Market. Anytime I see a pumpkin, a perfectly sized round pumpkin, mind you, i.e. a cute one, my personal rule demands that I buy it, regardless. This has resulted, as you can guess, in a house full of too many pumpkins. Part of the reason we love to buy them is everyone’s reaction. Maybe it’s because the word for pumpkin is so fun to say (dooba), but Ethiopians can’t help but say it. If we have a dooba in our hands, they tell us. They all tell us. For once, Ferengi! Money! is replaced with Dooba! Dooba! Dooba!, and we love it. Carrying it back from market, I’d guess we two wear smirks that goad Look what we have, just waiting for them to say it.

As the girl who always chooses pecan pie or cheesecake over pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving (but eventually eats a slice of pumpkin too, just out of loyalty to Thanksgiving culture), I’ve found a pumpkin pie I can get behind. It doesn’t involve any cans—only a dooba.

We always have bags of dooba puree in our freezer, for pumpkin bread, and now pumpkin pie. It’s lovely. Daniel tells me he thinks his neighbor Jil has always made pumpkin pie out of jack-o-lanterns. I have it in my mind to get her pie recipe as soon as I come home; making your own puree is about as satisfying as doing anything else homemade when there’s a substitute box at the store. The power to shirk boxes and cans can be a beautiful one.

Garden Trellises from Home-made Clothes Hangers

The hangers are home-made to begin with. This adds to the hilarity. It took us months to find clothes hangers in Adwa. When we did, they were fashioned by hand from thick, metal wire, and were quite expensive for what they were. All things metal and plastic and ugly are. All things clay and beautiful are not. (Ten birr per hanger, seven birr per gorgeous Ethiopian clay coffee pot. Conversion to USD: 52 cents per hanger, 36 cents per clay pot.)

When the time came to start our garden, the hangers served a second purpose. I was closing my eyes, clicking my heels, and wishing for a Lowe’s or The Home Depot to just pop up down the street. Every time we needed a wrench or a hammer—or now, trellises for our snow peas—wouldn’t be a problem anymore. We’d have a solution. (Spoiler: no Home Depot appeared.) But what did happen was, my husband grabbed some hangers and started twisting, pounding, jumping on. These wires were thick. It would be super easy to do with a normal hanger from the USA, but these were hefty home-made jobs, like I said. As a weak woman who’s never been able to bench-press the adequate amount in Gym class—though can hit a triple or home-run quite easily (are different muscles required?)—I couldn’t make the wire budge an inch. I don’t know how Daniel kept at it. But he did. And what we had when he was finished were fully-functioning trellises.

Baking!

You already know how we do this. We must’ve told you 1,000 times. But it’s still a miracle to me that it works (or, mostly works). Four tuna cans and a little pan within a big pan later, and what’ve we got?

Oh yeah. Red velvet cake. Lemon cake.

I still miss ovens. Dearly.

Teaching Aids

What do teachers do without teacher stores? Without internet and a free printer, hooked up to the same computer? Without laminating machines? I’m not really sure. But this is what we do. We make our own teaching materials (flashcards, games, posters) by hand. If we’re lucky, they’ll be more than one-use only.

This is an excerpt from a six-set household vocabulary matching game I made for my English clubs. The next set I am working on is for alphabet practice. O matches Oranges, U matches Umbrella, E matches Egg. The students love these. (In the second photo you can see Tsegabirhan, Rahwat, Birkti, and Adahanum playing the matching game.)

Daniel recently needed a phonics-learning songs for his weekly Saturday phonics trainings for the elementary teachers at the Catholic school. What did he do? He wrote his own songs and then recorded them himself, complete with melody and background vocals. They’re perfect.

* * *

Though living in a D.I.Y. universe can be inconvenient in some ways, it’s almost always refreshing. It’s an organic, simple sort of life that becomes addicting once you’re given a taste of it.

Here’s perhaps my favorite D.I.Y. anecdote:

Two nights before our friends arrived for Thanksgiving, Daniel and I wanted to make mozzarella in preparation for the festivities, via a cheese-making kit my parents gave me for my last birthday. It was all set: Misilal would come get me at 6, the milk-fetching time (i.e. the cow-milking time), to show me the nearest house we could buy from. The two of us walked in the sunset, turning down dirt roads I’d never seen before. How will I find this again? I kept thinking. Right, left, right, another right. I tried memorizing the path, all the while Misilal is saying lots of things to me I don’t understand, and I nod and smile, say Ishy (Okay). Similar to Meron, Misilal always talks to us in quick, fluent Tigrigna, maybe not noticing our horrified, confused stares as we try to keep up with her. But, unlike Meron’s new counting skills, I’ve never heard Misilal say anything in English.

When we got there, we were sat down, next to a cat and a cute little kid, while the Mama milked three liters for me out in the back. Then a girl brought Misilal and I something black and tar-like, in a block, on a plate—it was four minutes before I was sure it was food. I waited to hear the word bilee, (eat), because I didn’t know if it was a strange snack or a cow turd. (I can’t tell you enough how much this looked like a cow pie—and given the environment [cows!], I just had no evidence otherwise.) Four long minutes passed of Misilal and I looking at these plates, Misilal giggling, watching me, me asking what it is, what’s in it, and no one answering, just shrugging, squinting their eyes, and giggling. Eventually they say, Eat.

And it was weird. It was warm and mushy, and reminded me of a taste—maybe Ethiopian butter—I remembered from our early days in Sagure. But I kept eating it (giving some to the cat), until it was mostly finished. It was weird, but strangely good. Filling and warm, which I think were the very two purposes of this odd food.

Half an hour later, I’m back at the house with three liters of warm milk, and three hours (boiling and temperature-checking and straining by candlelight) later we have a batch of milky mozzarella cheese.

Note: When Daniel and I tried finding this house again, what happened is recounted in the first paragraph. I got us quite lost, and we sought the help of children.

Footnotes:

*Shout out: Wal-Mart kindly donated $100 worth of supplies (S’mores! Basketballs!) to our girls’ camp last summer and have always donated to my clothing-the-homeless projects. Wal-Mart’s heart is big.

Marriage and Children's Books, featuring "If You Give A Zach A Phone"

            On January 2^nd, Daniel and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary—our second one in Ethiopia, our third spent eating Ethiopian food.

            The pair of us loves to read. We love to write. We love children. We love reading to and writing for children. In our six years together, we’ve co-written three children’s books. Allow us to introduce them to you.

            The first was The Legend of Hickory Shagbark, a riveting tale about an old witch (Bo-Gunny Curtis) who brings a tree (Hickory) to life to do her bidding (burning down the town’s candy factory, because she hates butterscotch and children). It takes the likes of young Frisbee Jefferson (who “is as virtuous as he is adventurous”) to stop Hickory and to help him put his strength toward something valuable (hurling the witch’s shack into the Mississippi). Though we wrote this together during our early dating days, I illustrated and arranged this story into its own book form as my wedding gift to Daniel. [The authors listed: Daniel Luttrull and Danielle Steadman.]

            Our second story begins:

Ages ago on a grand little hill

in a place known as Southern Peru

lived a spiky sort

of creation, of course,

who looked nothing like me or like you.

             The Legend of the Stagasaurus is a very loose analogy of our relationship—recounting how various nay-sayers once told a young girl (or, stegasaurus: Sally) she’d never find a boy (or, stagosaurus: Sal) who met her high, counter-culture standards, who shared her joys and principles, and who loved her at the same time. If you can’t guess, against all odds, the two dinosaurs do in fact meet and fall in love, proving the whole town wrong. We wrote this story during our engagement, as a gift for our parents, for providing us with a lovely wedding; we read it to them and our guests at our rehearsal dinner on January 1. [The authors listed: for the first time, Daniel Luttrull and Danielle Luttrull.]

            Here’s a bit of human interest for you: Daniel and I shared our first kiss (his first, my first, our first—and after eight months of dating) during the writing of The Legend of Hickory Shagbark. What’s more romantic than literature?, ask we two Writing majors. What I didn’t know for sure until today, and what has lingered in my thoughts for five years—Why can’t I remember the exact date of our first kiss? What happened to that calendar where I wrote it down? I want another day to celebrate!—Microsoft Word just gladly and beautifully answered for me. I knew it was the last week of July. Just recently I asked Daniel, hopefully, “Do you think these two important days could be the same?” And they indeed are. I thought I could feel tears coming on when I saw the date listed just now, but I was also unsurprised. I instinctively knew what it would say anyway. The day was July 25, 2008.

            Which brings us to our third story. July 25, 2012 is a tad more special—it brought our first nephew into the world, into Mentor, Ohio, and into loving arms. Zachary Alexander Kelley. (We’ll never forget our first kiss date again.)

            This autumn we wrote If You Give A Zach A Phone, an obvious play on Laura Joffe Numeroff’s “If You Give A…” series, including If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, If You Give A Pig A Pancake, If You Give A Moose A Muffin, etc. Her stories are beautifully cyclical, beginning with giving, say, a cookie to a mouse on the first page, which leads the little guy to request various other items and services (milk, a straw, a napkin), until finally, by the last page, he’s in need of another cookie.

            When we went home last summer, we met Zachary for the first time. At 11 months, he was a pro at telecommunications. Anything that even faintly resembled a phone he would grab, hold to his ear, and say, “Hello?” (The “hello” got progressively clearer as days went on.) Two weeks ago my sister sent us a video of him holding her iPhone. Christine says, “Take a picture of yourself, Zach. And say cheese.” Zach holds the phone up and away from him, horizontally aloft, smiles, and says, “Cheese!” This boy’s already taking selfies on command. (He’s incredibly smart!)

            Last year Christine mailed us some blank children’s-sized books, for the very purpose of, despite the ocean between us, finding a way to be closer to our nephew. That’s exactly what we attempted with If You Give A Zach A Phone. We also recorded ourselves each reading it aloud to him; Daniel even added in fancy chords at the end of each page (Remember read-along books?). In other words, we should go into the book business.

            For the record, my illustration skills are not naturally this accurate. Daniel taught me a trick he learned in high school art class—if you put an image on a glass, and put a light under the glass, you can trace beautifully. Or, in our case, if you tape Zach’s photo to our living room window, and stack behind it David Copperfield, John Donne’s poems, and an Agatha Christie murder mystery, positioning a flashlight atop the books—well, you get the picture. It took us about two months. Please note, I've already apologized to Daniel and John for some of their portraits, i.e. eyebrow crayon mishaps. [The authors listed: Uncle Daniel and Aunt Danielle.]

            We hope you learn along with Zach as you read his story, and also get a glimpse of the difficulty of missing out on the earliest years of the ones you love and miss so dearly (the plight of Peace Corps Volunteers, missionaries, and servicemen and women across the globe).

Merry Christmas!

I’ve never understood the notion of going on vacation for Christmas. The very premise of Home Alone, one of the best Christmas movies ever made, doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you go to France for Christmas?! The idea of packing wrapped gifts into a suitcase to sleep elsewhere on Christmas Eve—no thank you.

We had an excellent Christmas last Christmas. We spent the holiday with our closest friends in Bahir Dar: Christmas on the lake complete with palm trees, seafood, a swimming resort, renting out a movie theatre, and writing and recording a Christmas rap among friends. It was a lovely and memorable Christmas.

But packing up our gifts to each other, and from our parents, to head to the Axum airport, felt so odd. Christmas, to me and my hands gripping to tradition, is for home, not travel.

And when home is thousands of miles and dollars away, your second home is the second best thing.

I’m so excited to spend Christmas in Adwa this December 25^th. To wake up to our toilet-paper-roll Christmas tree, exchange gifts with each other, stay in our pj’s all day, watching Frosty the Snowman and The Christmas Story, playing games and eating pumpkin pie and coffee cake.

Christmas is for home, and Christmas is for family. And while we’d obviously love to be with our families this Christmas, we’re making the most of this: our once-in-a-lifetime chance to celebrate just the two of us. A quiet Christmas for our family of two, one we’ll look back on with joy.

Exhausted after making a lavish Thanksgiving feast with and for friends, a neighbor volunteer asked us our Christmas plans, if we planned to host a Christmas dinner or party of some sort. Wiping the sweat from my brow (or was it Daniel wiping chicken blood from his shorts?), apologizing, we said, “We’re looking forward to a quiet Christmas, just the two of us. Because when else will we have that chance?”

No one says, “We want to spend Christmas alone this year!” But now that we’ve been dealt that very thing, we are embracing it. What a romantic, peaceful opportunity: a husband and wife Christmasing together, alone.

And I still feel like a kid, anticipating the approaching magic. Tiptoeing into our living room to sneak goodies into Daniel’s stocking, to leave cookies & milk powder out for Santa, and to make a single snowball from our “Snow In A Can.”

Merry Christmas from Adwa!

When in Ethiopia.

Thanksgiving in Photos

If these two folks look tired to you, it’s because they just prepared Thanksgiving dinner for their first time—and did it in a developing country.

Let’s look at some photos of prep. and the big day.

Daniel and our good friend Aaron Arnold were on chicken duty on Wednesday morning. They chased and caught each of the three chickens we had our neighbors buy for us at market, killed them, plucked them, gutted them, and then put them in a brine to prepare for the big day. It took about five hours.

 

Meanwhile, Danielle and Aaron’s wife Sarah were busy baking. They made two pumpkin pies, a red velvet cake, and fudge—all with a makeshift oven jerry-rigged from a little pot in a big pot on our stove.

On Thursday, we were ready and provided guests with all the trappings of Thanksgiving. Here’s a shot of Joel, Danielle, and Sarah enjoying the 2012 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on our computer.

For us and our eight guests, we had three chickens, six-and-a-half pounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sauerkraut, bread, carrots, canned peas, corn, cranberry sauce, ham, five liters of tej, the local wine made from honey, and the desserts.

After the feast, we went to the college and played basketball with some of the students. It was pretty good game. In true Thanksgiving Day fashion, Daniel got a little too serious and shoved one of the college students who accidentally slapped him across the face.

After the basketball, we returned to the house and used the college’s projector to watch an old American football game we downloaded while in Germany.

All told it was a successful Thanksgiving—thanks to a little luck and a little help from our friends.

Travels with John

            Wherever my copy of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley now sits, I’d bet my bookmark still sits between two pages, waiting. I read the first half in college, ate it up, then got distracted with coursework. The same thing has happened with The Sound and the Fury, twice.

            Steinbeck is one of those writers I feel I know, like an uncle or something, along with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and somewhat, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I think the key, surprise surprise, is reading their biographies and as much of their work as you can. Steinbeck, of whose works I’ve read seven, seems the closest—probably because his biography, beautifully written by Jackson J. Benson, happened to be 1,000 pages long and consumed my entire spring break 2009.

            And he reminds me of my dad.

            When a fellow volunteer recently lent it to me, I began back at page one, and read it mostly during the late mornings, sitting beside our garden where the sun and shade continuum is nearly perfect; it didn’t feel right or natural to read an observational, adventurous road-trip book indoors.

            I figured reading a book about America, and the beauty and quirks of each state and her people, would be best read outside of America, when you’re distant and longing for it on a regular basis. And I think I figured right.

            The following are my own reflections on some of my favorite passages from this lovely read; Steinbeck’s passages are in italics, and mine follow behind.

            

            There was a time not too long ago when a man put out to sea and ceased to exist for two or three years or forever. And when the covered wagons set out to cross the continent, friends and relations remaining at home might never hear from the wanderers again. Life went on, problems were settled, decisions were taken. Even I can remember when a telegram meant just one thing—a death in the family. In one short lifetime the telephone has changed all that. If in this wandering narrative I seem to have cut the cords of family joys and sorrows, of Junior’s current delinquency and junior Junior’s new tooth, of business triumph and agony, it is not so. Three times a week from some bar, supermarket, or tire-and-tool-cluttered service station, I put calls through to New York and reestablished my identity in time and space. For three or four minutes I had a name, and the duties and joys and frustrations a man carries with him like a comet’s tail. It was like dodging back and forth from one dimension to another, a silent explosion of breaking through a sound barrier, a curious experience, like a quick dip into a known but alien water.

           

            Connecting with home is odd, and we can’t help it. When we communicate with home, we’re communicating with America and all of its America-ness; and to us, America and her reality is so far away.

            Terms have different definitions on each side of the phone. I say, “We’re having coffee,” and my family can’t help but picture us clicking a button on an electric coffee pot, a buy-one-get-one-free Maxwell House container in my hand. But, really, once a week I’m rinsing then roasting raw coffee beans, fanning away the skins from my doorstep to the yard while trying to keep the chickens from coming into my kitchen, I’m cooling the beans, picking out the rotten ones, storing the rest; once every few days we’re pounding the beans with cinnamon sticks and shaking them from our hallowed-out log and into a French Press. “Going to church” to those back home usually involves hearing a sermon from a preacher whose first language is the same as their own, and attending a service of their preferred denomination; not so for us. We’re Protestants in a Catholic service for sisters, watching our friends file for Communion, while we sit misty-eyed, wishing we could join them, tempted to become Catholic right then so we can join them. “Running errands” is nothing like you’d imagine. The concept of jumping into your car and driving some place to “pick up a few things” from separate, numbered, conveniently-over-loaded aisles seems an unreachable concept, in another sort of strange world.

            I’m not even Danielle here. Sometimes Daniel calls me by my name, and half of those times, it’s Danielle. I’m Babe or Danayit or Ferengi the rest of the time. But we pick up that phone, or we turn on our shoddy Skype, and I’m Danielle again. I always have been, and on that side of the receiver, nothing has changed. I still am.

            Their lives are still normal and predictable, just what we remember. We ask about their day, and they’re either making dinner (in an oven), or just got back from the grocery store (where there was pasteurized milk, gallons of it lining the walls), or returned from their 9 to 5 (where they spoke fluent English with their coworkers), or they’re about to turn on the game, on their very own television. Then we hang up the call and hear the hyenas whooping outside our yard, and the megaphone man riding his bicycle, announcing the news in the streets. It’s a hallucinatory feeling, disorienting and dreamlike.

           

            I sometimes fear coming home and everybody forgetting about our very weird reality from 2012 to 2014. It will change us and follow us around daily, and friends will wonder why, but they won’t really ask. They’ll say, “How was it?”, thinking they’re truly asking—one question, expecting one answer. As if we could sum all of this up with one sentence.

            We went home, and it was like we never left—because they haven’t changed; for the most part, they’re the same family and friends we said goodbye to. And when they look at us, physically we’re the same, only tanner and thinner, and they may not know how to breach the subject, the Are-we-still-a-part-of-the-same-reality? subject. How can they ask, How different are you now? But, then again, how can they not?

            Steinbeck is speaking a truth close to every Peace Corps volunteer’s heart and fears when he says, Even I can remember when a telegram meant just one thing—a death in the family. Every time my phone rings at an hour that doesn’t make sense for the Eastern Standard time zone, my heart drops and I’m afraid to answer. There’s always that first, lingering question that we try to push down and hide: Is everyone okay? And I hold my breath for that first word, to judge from the hello—Is it happy, or is it sobs, like the time my mom called after my sister’s epidural went wrong?

            Outside of our home we speak a different language; we’re surrounded by it, and good English is rare. Our eggs are delivered from the neighbor boy, sporadically, still warm with feces or blood streaks covering the shell. Our garbage man is ourselves, with a match and a flame and a hole in our backyard. We go to work, to school, in what most people wouldn’t call classrooms, arriving there by stepping stones across a river, and passing flocks of sheep and grown, naked men bathing on our way. When we hear American music, whatever it may be, we feel a tinge of homesickness. Churches blast loud, awful “music” all through the night, keeping us awake. If we want a hot shower, we turn on our water heater and wait two hours; and when other volunteers come to our home, there’s a long line for the hot shower, and they bathe in the middle of the party, and it’s normal. Our neighbors knock on our door five times a day, just to see if we’re there, to talk about the weather. Camels mosey down our road, geckos run in and out of our living room, parrots fly through our yard, tarantulas creep through our grass, and I run into the house when I’m reading beside our garden and see a menacing toucan-ish beak I can’t bear to have near me. We play hide-and-seek for an hour with our favorite Ethiopian, speaking only Tigrigna, our very own Semitic dialect with 200-some characters that my husband can read. We’re surrounded, in every direction, by poverty. Meanwhile, life goes on as always for our family and friends, and if we Skype, we may hear about foreign things like Target or snowfall or ordering things online or baking cupcakes or seeing Christmas decorations in town.

            They’re surrounded by familiarity, and we know exactly what that looks like: the everyday same old—which we often love and long for. But we leave our compound, and we’re Al and Alice in Wonderland, confused out of our minds, often frustrated. Our everyday hours are drastically different from those at home.

            So what could we possibly tell them? Our sitemate Lauren, after Skyping with friends, often asks us, “What do you say to them? How do you explain?” It’s hard. We’re surrounded, constantly, by this very real and very strange Ethiopian reality, so complex and involved; and we can’t possibly tell them everything. So we don’t. They hear the crazy or hilarious stories, but it’s hard to give them a picture of what this place, our life, is really like. If they ask questions, it’s easier. Daniel’s parents are famous for this. Jim is so curious about and fascinated with everything Ethiopian, he knows how to ask great questions. And Debbie has been here. She knows what it’s like, she’s tasted the ful and sat at a coffee ceremony, she’s been followed by kids pretending to be beggars, has ridden an Ethiopian bus, has been confused by Misilal’s rapid Tigrigna, has greeted baby goats at market—has seen the wild world of market—and has scrubbed clothes with us for hours; she knows what to ask. But without questions, we don’t know where to start. We don’t know how to tell them, how to paint a full and accurate picture. Sometimes, they’ll get a glimpse. While on the phone, they’ll ask, “What was that?” as the passing donkey brays or our neighbor’s roosters crow at our doorstep; and we’ll remember that these things were once odd sounds to us too. They’ll hear us holler to our neighbors, who come knocking, and we holler in Tigrigna; to them, it’s novel. To us, it’s normal, and by the fifth time they come to the doorway, we’re tired of opening the door. I realize how much we need to work on explaining, when I get questions like, “Do Ethiopians celebrate Halloween?” and I’m confused. Well, no, of course they don’t. And I realize we’re still at square one, and may always be.

            I realize that Debbie, who has seen and touched, and Jim, who might be able to visit next year, may be the only ones who will ever understand when we talk about these two years. Them and 200-some others who will return to the states alongside us, with whom we must stay in touch in order to stay sane, in order to remember, together.

            It’s as Steinbeck says: it’s a crossing into a different dimension every time we make a call. There, we have a comet’s tail again. We’re connected to our past, American selves for only a brief moment.

            A few months ago I Skyped with my mom, and she had our nephew Zachary with her. He was on her lap, his face up to the computer, waving at us, she said; we couldn’t tell because our video has crashed. He was right up to the computer, so I got right up to the computer too. I was nearly in tears, tempted to hug the computer, and wondering, how can I be this physically close to him, but unable to reach in there and touch him? We’re looking into the looking glass, so close but so far.

            It’s weird. Every so often we break through the sound barrier, hear the sounds of home, are comforted, and then return to our living room in Ethiopia, where next to nothing is normal.

* * *

            But I do wonder if a down-Easter, sitting on a nylon-and-aluminum chair out on a changelessly green lawn slapping mosquitoes in the evening of a Florida October—I do wonder if the stab of memory doesn’t strike him high in the stomach just below the ribs where it hurts. And in the humid ever-summer I dare his picturing mind not to go back to the shout of color, to the clean rasp of frosty air, to the smell of pine wood burning and the caressing warmth of kitchens. For how can one know color in perpetual green, and what good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?

            When I described the bi-weekly symptoms—the squeezing of my heart, the sharp knives under my ribs, having to fall asleep in the fetal position—my doctor in Addis said it sounds like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, heightened in Ethiopia. But when I read Steinbeck’s high in the stomach just below the ribs where it hurts, I can’t help but smile. Or, maybe it’s that, I think. We need our auburn leaves and frosted windows and cozy mittens. We need the caressing warmth of kitchens, need to put our hands against the oven door while the weekly bread bakes, need to leave the ever-summer. Maybe without these necessities, it’s difficult for a Hoosier and an Ohioan to remain healthy.

            Daniel and I are Mid-Westerners to the bone. It would require hearty convincing to get us to settle in the southern US, or out West. We love Fall, we love Winter, we love experiencing the whole calendar and all her seasons. And yet we’re trapped in a perpetual summer. I once told Daniel that instead of this being like Narnia, where it was always Winter and never Christmas—in Adwa, it’s always Summer and never ice cream. Never swimming. Never softball. Never backyard barbecues. Never watermelon and cornhole.

            There’s a beach said to be beautiful an hour and a half from us. A Peace Corps Ethiopia volunteer from the 60s tells us Adwa was once the coveted site among volunteers, for this reason. But because that beach is in Eritrea, we will never see it. We sweat through seven months without rain, our scalps burn, we see mirages of blow-up kiddy pools in our yard, and we carry umbrellas to protect our faces from the beating African sun; and we can’t cross that border to the beach.

            Steinbeck is talking about us, the Florida retiree who longs for the Middle West. October and November are difficult for the MidWest Peace Corps volunteer living in the tropics. The months fly by us here, and we don’t even realize the calendar is closing. It’s October?! we say. But what about the World Series? What about Halloween? Where are the piles of pumpkins? Or, how can it be December already? Where are the lights and Christmas trees and carols? And why am I dripping sweat? I once asked my brother-in-law, in February, how his soccer season was going. We really, truly, have no idea what month or season is happening elsewhere. It’s always time to water our garden, it’s always time to wear tank-tops and shorts, it’s always time to freeze juice for the neighbor kids. Because it’s always hot.

            Maybe this sounds lovely to you. If so, you should visit us. The cactus always grows in Adwa; and the cactus fruit is heavenly.

            But we miss cold football bleachers, wool hats pulled down to cover red ears, hot chocolate in Styrofoam cups, leaves crackling beneath our soles, fuzzy blankets tight around us, bonfires leaving their smell on your jeans, eating chili and steaming soup when it’s not 80 degrees.

            I was reading Daniel one of Edith Wharton’s ghost stories and she described the winter wind whistling through the trees. I groaned instead of reading it. I paused and waited and tried to hear it. There were Survivor episodes where the contestants would pay the host stacks of bills for a PB&J sandwich, a chocolate bar, a glass of milk. I won’t tell you how much I’d pay for five minutes in a warm room beside a sealed window with frosty air on the other side of it, snow drifting down, and that sound—of a strong and angry bitter wind whistling.

            What good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?

           

* * *

            Writers facing the problem of Texas find themselves floundering in generalities, and I am no exception. Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. And there’s an opening covey of generalities. A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner….

            Most areas in the world may be placed in latitude and longitude, described chemically in their earth, sky and water, rooted and fuzzed over with identified flora and peopled with known fauna, and there’s an end to it. Then there are others where fable, myth, preconception, love, longing, and prejudice step in and so distort a cool, clear appraisal that a kind of high-colored magical confusion takes permanent hold. Greece is such an area, and those parts of England where King Arthur walked. One quality of such places I am trying to define is that a very large part of them is personal and subjective. And surely Texas is such a place….

            What I am trying to say is that there is no physical or geographical unity in Texas. Its unity lies in the mind. And this is not only in Texans. The word Texas becomes a symbol to everyone in the world. There’s no question that this Texas-of-the-mind fable is often synthetic, sometimes untruthful, and frequently romantic, but that in no way diminishes its strength as a symbol.

            I’m grateful for Steinbeck’s graceful stumbling through his description of Texas. His lack of the right words, his clinging to generalities, to describe Texas and the feelings she hands you, is fitting. How can someone describe, truly and fairly describe this southern queen of a state?

            One of the fun elements of being a part of the Peace Corps community is meeting strangers and friends from all over the U.S. I’ve never before had a hankering or a reason to see California, but now I have Laura Schickling, a dear friend, a fascinating person. I like meeting Peace Corps volunteers from Ohio, I do. Shane was two seats behind us on our infamous flight from Cleveland to D.C., a day before we’d depart from the country. He’s a Euclid boy, here in Ethiopia with us. He knows about the Willoughby Brewing Company, and always asks how my family, how Cleveland, is doing.

            But I feel a different sort of camaraderie and excitement when I meet a volunteer for the first time, and that second question comes—where are you from?—and she names a Texas city. Austin, Dallas, Killeen. She knows, I think. We both know. As if it’s a secret that Texas could be grand enough to place a hold on any or every individual who comes near enough.

            When a friend tells me he’s going to see Texas, I have a mixture of emotions that push and cram to spill out at once. My initial reflex is I love Texas. Texas is wonderful. You’re going to love it, and then I want to clarify and justify and take it back. Because it’s different, I think, if you’re going to visit Texas. It’s likely and often that a temporary passer-through will not love her. He’ll drip with sweat and ingratitude and not appreciate what this sweet, hospitable hostess longs to offer him. I want to adjust my answer to a more honest and helpful one: Don’t visit Texas. Live there, if you can.

            I’m still in the sappy break-up period with Texas. I’m trying to appreciate the time we had together, trusting that it’s fate alone who keeps us from partnering up again. I’m trying to keep bitterness at bay, my anger that it couldn’t last forever. There were two deal-breakers then, they’re there now, and they’ll always be there: she’s too far from family and roots; and she doesn’t give me red leaves or a proper winter. Ohio is someone I can settle down with, Indiana too. Our rough patches would be limited to only a few green Christmases in a life-long commitment; Texas and I would have a nasty row at the close of every year.

            I can’t say exactly why I love the place so much. But it’s more than a place, it’s a being, and I know that you really can’t understand what I mean until you’ve lived there yourself. It likely has something to do with cowboy boots, barbecue, ya’ll and the accents, five or so families I wish I could carry with me everywhere, Bless her heart, ranches, LadyBird’s bluebonnets, the elderly customer on the phone who yelled to his wife in what I thought was a different language, camping in April and October, pecans lining the sidewalks, country-fried steak, and hard workers. In so many ways Texas seems to represent for me the beloved values of America and Americans. She’s hometown, country, family, spiritual, multicultural, with great food with lots of butter thrown in.

            I was born and raised in the same suburb of Cleveland, Ohio for twenty-some years, and yet I claim that swelling Texas pride. I don’t know if I’m allowed this, if Texans are okay with me taking this—but if you’ve met a Texan, you know she’d invite anyone to join her in singing Texas’s praises. And it’s a sort of rite of passage. If you endured the egg-sizzling-on-the-sidewalk heat for a year or more, if you’ve seen her in the Spring, if you’ve been overcome with crickets, you’re in.

            The only way it could ever work out for the two of us, in some alternate universe, would be if my family had brought us up there, if the 20-minute radius in which all my relatives, save a recent handful, have lived, could have been in McClennan County instead of Lake County. Or if she were just a tad bit closer than an 18-hour drive. Yet every time Texas smirks that knowing flirtatious smirk of I won you over, too, and now you’ll never get over me, I find myself both wanting to bashfully agree with her and loudly sing Adele lyrics back at her, at the same time. Nevermind, I’ll find someone like you.

            But the wiser part of me knows I won’t; there’s only one of her.

* * *

            Americans as I saw them and talked to them were indeed individuals, each one different from the others, but gradually I began to feel that the Americans exist, that they really do have generalized characteristics regardless of their states, their social and financial status, their education, their religious, and their political convictions. But if there is indeed an American image built of truth rather than reflecting either hostility or wishful thinking, what is this image? What does it look like? What does it do? If the same song, the same joke, the same style sweeps through all parts of the country at once, it must be that all Americans are alike in something.

            Before I began my semester in Uganda, I wasn’t sure how I felt about America. I was an angsty college student, upset with what I considered to be our nation’s needless consumerism and unhealthy rate of selfishness. There was a point I stopped holding my hand to my heart during the national anthem at baseball games—not to prove a point (I was hoping no one would notice, actually), but because I felt dishonest doing it.

            But then I went to Africa. It was probably as early as the second week that I realized the gravity of my mistake. Going to Africa can do that. It was what I learned about my own country while within one very far away that made me a firm believer in cross-cultural travel.

            Before you leave your country, it’s possible to mistake your basis of logic and reasoning and every part of who you are and how you operate as universal traits of humanity. This is what makes me human, you may think as you complete a task or think a thought that seems to you to be something true for all people. But if the only humans we’ve observed and communed with have been Americans—then, really, how can we know the difference? Then you land yourself in a place like Africa and suddenly everything is topsy-turvy, your head and heart are not just swimming, but floundering, and you can’t believe this alternate reality has been happening all along on the other side of the globe. You do and think your “human” things, suddenly aware that the humans surrounding you are perplexed and staring. Wait. They aren’t like this too? And then you understand the difference between being human and being American.

            It’s safe to say that the basis of most of our frustrations here, our headaches, my ever-increasing number of gray hairs, just behind the bangs, comes down to the qualities and characteristics that I as an American sincerely value and yet find absent in the Ethiopians and the culture around me. Qualities I naively expect good, kind people to innately have, and here, may be nonexistent. No one tells you in third grade Social Studies that good and kind are relative, that maybe fifteen years from now, standing in line in an African bank, you shouldn’t yell at those shoving you out of line to get to the teller before you. No one tells you that somewhere out there in a hot, dry place called Tigray, Ethiopia there’s a language where need and want are the exact same word, and one day you’ll be wringing your hands in front of your classroom, deeply needing to explain the difference, because to you, the difference means the world, as your own personal economy and simplicity depends on this very semantic difference.

            We’re always learning here, and that’s what’s hard. Our brother and sister-in-law, Andrew and Kate, recently told us that a baby has a rough, fitful sleep during a crucial learning period. Nights before a baby walks, he’ll be restless in his dreams, somehow trying to work it all out. Our poorly-made bedframe is louder than a freight train—trust me, I’m not trying to blame my less-restful-Ethiopian sleeps on the constant learning. But it is true, for me, that it’s hard to be fully at peace in a foreign land. You’re always behind the curve, you’re always wondering Where the heck am I? You’re always waiting to be thrown off balance.

            I find it ironic that one of the infamous questions a proud English student will ask a foreigner on the street in Ethiopia is How do you compare Ethiopia and America? Because, really, it’s the contrast that makes the difference.

            And that’s how I came to know America in Uganda. That’s how, when I returned home from Uganda I wasn’t only ready to place my hand over my heart again, I was ready to sing the anthem as loud as my bad pitch could take me. I was eager to be the one to unravel the flag from my parents’ closet on any day that would even vaguely encourage us to wave it from our porch. And if four months in Uganda made me a patriot, a year and a half in Ethiopia has made me—I don’t know, what’s the next step? Should I carry the Bill of Rights around in my pocket?

            Being in other countries, in developing countries, hasn’t made me love my country out of appreciation and relief-at-flushing-toilets alone; I’m not talking about only the abundant American blessings. Being in other countries has simply shown me the tiny details that make up my country, taught me what she’s like, by contrast, and sometimes by comparison. And in this I’ve come to love her.

            Americans hold politeness very near to love; if we forget to bless someone’s sneeze, it may bother us for an hour. Americans value cleanliness, of person, of home. Americans treasure the freedoms we’re awarded, and struggle to expand and redefine them, in an effort to include everyone. Americans value uniqueness and individuality; we value individuals’ opinions so highly, that if someone criticizes us, we’ll likely not forget it. Americans know the worth of self-esteem and confidence, of independence from the norm. Americans love privacy. Americans think it’s hurtful, and hence, wrong to point out “flaws” of another person, to compare two people, and to do so right in front of them. Americans are protective of everyone we love and everything we own; if we let our young toddling child out of our sight for more than three minutes, we think the world might combust (and it might). Americans hold logic and reasoning to a high standard; we disregard spirituality, or political debates, if they’re not well thought out, if they’re not our own personal opinions and choice, but someone else’s we’ve only copied and repeated as fact. Americans value variety. Americans love food like it’s a family member, understanding that taste is a gift, and experimenting with it is a noble endeavor. Americans respect some animals, our pets, almost on the level of fellow humans; we not only feed them, but we value nurturing them, petting them, welcoming them (and naming them) like people (sometimes, well, clothing them). It should be noted that this certainly is not true for animals that Americans eat; we could take a lesson from Ethiopia in how to care for such beasts.

            Americans value heritage and traditions. Americans, believing so fully in the American dream, really do believe we can achieve whatever we set out to achieve—this makes us feel guilty if we achieve “less,” makes us feel entirely responsible for our own futures. Americans feel deep down that everyone, everyone, deserves to be equal, in everything; our laws, our Supreme Court, are still trying to make sure this evolves with the times and continues to happen. Americans value a job well done; we hold “work ethic” up there with “righteousness” and “integrity,” and feel that if we don’t put in a full day of back-breaking, sweaty labor, maybe we could’ve worked harder. (This is what I miss the most about you, America; we’re a hard-core, trustworthy country when it comes to doing work and doing it with perfection as our goal.) Americans value timeliness and equate it with responsibility—if you’re two hours late coming to meet me, maybe stay home; if you didn’t call to say you’d be two hours late, it will take me a while to get over it.

            The slippery irony of all this is: I’ve lived in Africa longer than I’ve lived in any state outside of the Midwest. And so, everything I just said above may not be true of Americans at all. Maybe it’s only true of Midwesterners, or of the Midwesterners I happen to know. America is a big place; I tell Ethiopians this, when they ask me if I know so-and-so. I didn’t know folks from Maine are a terse group, until I read Travels with Charley. I can guess some laidback, even keel things about Californians. I assume New York, New Yorkers and Chicago-ans are always in a hurry; I’ve seen them cross crosswalks. Texans are as warm and hospitable as you’re imagining them to be. So it’s true that we’re not universal, and have our own separate pockets of truth sewn throughout our great country. But the above is what I’ve noticed about the America I know and the America I love.

Countdowns and 200-Some Meters

We had coffee with the Girimkils recently. Girimkil was telling us about the different foreigners who have lived in our house, and in this area, in the past. We could probably name ten for you, from the stories we’ve heard. The most famous: Don, Sue, Anna Marie. Girimkil was saying Alloe, Arow, Ammo…Luam?, seeking Luam’s help, who offered, “Aaron.” Yes, yes, Aaron. And the story continued. I briefly wondered, Will Luam remind him of Danayit and Daniel some day? and brushed it away like a fly.

He told us about a group of four foreigners who lived here for six months. When they were leaving, saying goodbye, they didn’t want to get in the car. They eventually had Girimkil join them in the car for part of the drive, before they would bid him farewell.

He then told us, in Tigrign-lish and after a few tries, that Meron would go inside our “materials.” He meant luggage. I searched my Tigrigna vocabulary, wondering how I could express If only.

If I think about it, I cry. So I don’t really think about it. One night we lay in bed, talking about what our final week in Adwa might look like. Gosh, can you imagine how excited we’ll be? This line is a staple when we talk about summer 2014. I followed it with something about how devastated I’ll be at the same time. I mentioned leaving Meron, and her not fully realizing that we won’t be coming back. How we’ve given up two years in the states with Zach, but starting next year, we’ll have Zach forever—and yet it’s possible that we may never see Meron again. I’ve learned we shouldn’t talk about things like this at night. I cry into my pillow, and wake up with puffy eyelids.

I’m not a very present person. When I’m in Adwa, I want to be in Willoughby. And I know myself, how I operate: one day, in Willoughby, I’ll be missing Adwa. My future self will give anything to snap her fingers and be back with the cobblestone, bajajes, curious kids, injera.

I’m trying to be more present. At Peace Corps Mid-Service Conference, we wrote letters to ourselves, to open when we leave. We included goals for the next year. My first one was Eat more Ethiopian food.

My sister has been sending me lists of the words Zach says, and the words they’re working on. Down. Tigger. Vroom (that’s Uncle Charlie). When I read the list of names he’s saying, I started crying. He doesn’t know us.

These are the things that keep me from being present. So I remind myself, constantly: Two years are brief when juxtaposed with an entire lifetime. So enjoy it.

This is the kid whose bottom bunk was always decorated with year-round countdown calendars, next to the Kenny Lofton poster. 100 days until Christmas. 100 days until vacation. I’m always looking to the next thing. Nowadays it’s: Two semesters until we’re back home. One year until we start trying for a baby. All the while unknowingly wishing away this precious opportunity we have right now.

I can see it: Two years from now, we’ll have trouble finding a babysitter. We need a night away, just the two of us. I’ll look at Daniel and remind him. Remember Adwa? Remember when school started our second year, and as I walked there alone, I realized it was the first time we had physically been in two different places—in four months?

Four months. Who else is given such a gift? Married astronauts in the same shuttle, that’s who. Them, and retired lovebirds. Some days, spending hours upon hours with my favorite person—knowing that some American spouses cross paths in the night, wishing they had more time—I find myself uttering Lou Gehrig’s words. We’re the luckiest. We know it’s too good to be true, we know what real life with real jobs is like.

And yet I long for home, to be there. Instead.

Sometimes it feels like just another countdown. When visiting a friend in Mekele awhile ago, we saw a stack of Post-It notes on her wall. It said 18. What’s this? we asked. How many months we have left, she said. It’s hanging beside photos of her sister, her mom. She pulls a note away on the first of each month. Sometimes living here doesn’t feel like real life: we don’t have 9 to 5’s, we don’t have salaries. I’ve said this before—it feels like a bookmark, a hiatus of helping. But it’s not a hiatus. This is our life.

Be present. It’s what I’m trying for. After the coffee ceremony, Meron and I played in the yard. I followed her around our house, flapping our fake wings (which were later symbolized by bushels of flowers), cawing and taking turns singing. I echoed her Tigrigna songs, awfully. She echoed You are My Sunshine and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, impressively, adorably, awfully. I gave her piggybacks. We skipped in circles.

It had been a few weeks since Meron came over to color and read. So we asked her to. She came the next day at lunchtime. We were in the middle of a West Wing episode when we heard her knock. We could have said Not now, come back later. It would’ve been easy: we were reaching the episode’s climax—Congress was about to pass a bill the Democrat party wouldn’t have liked, or something. But it would have been a later regret, a way to not be present. She came in and we read, we colored, we dunked biscuits in our tea.

She and Daniel have a few inside jokes. Whenever she knocks on the door, Daniel’s eyes scan the yard at his height. “Man? Man iyu?” (Who? Who is it?) I know when she’s here, when he’s about to let her in, because I can hear her quiet Ana, ana, ana. (It’s me.) They also have this puffing game, between the two of them. Daniel puffs a big breath of air into one of my ears, backs away quickly, and points to Meron. Meron puffs the tiniest breath of air into one of my ears, backs away quickly, and points to Daniel. They go back and forth, blaming each other, giggling; it can go on for awhile.

We’re going to miss her, a lot. I once daydreamed about bringing her back with us. Not seriously, but it didn’t stop me. Meron would hate America, Daniel said. But we could take her to a proper dentist, I said. Meron would hate any place where there was no Misilal. (Her mom.) He’s absolutely right.

Relationships are hard. I’m reading a book right now with one of those characters, you know, who are “afraid to love again.” Three out of five chick flicks, and it has always seemed silly to me. I assume that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life. No one really says that, do they? I don’t want to get hurt again, so I can’t love you.

People may not say it, but we do feel it. In different, less-cliché ways. In a masked form, so we don’t even realize it.

In another late-night conversation, I cried about Waco, about missing Waco, about Adwa becoming just another Waco. (For the record, I cry easily. This doesn’t mean I’m depressed about Waco. It means, simply, that I’m talking about Waco, hence I’m crying about it; that’s how great Waco was.) Time passes too quickly. People and places come and go, and far too quickly, they become the past. Just like that.

So, be present, be present. Be present.

J. Grigsby Crawford, in his memoir The Gringo, writes about his Peace Corps experience:

            And here you are, measuring your life not in coffee spoons, but in baskets of laundry done by hand, walks down the dusty road to swim in the river, and cold showers that are good cold showers because it’s hot as hell and from the bathroom you can look through the crack between the brick and the corrugated tin and see the green foothills surrounding the small valley.

            You measure it in Saturdays spent drinking bad beer—except it’s good beer because it’s light and cold and you can drink it in the shade and watch the grainy TV in the corner while the women behind the counter ask you questions about the world….

            There is a calendar on the wall and turning the page over to a new month is nothing if not a satisfying and glorious feeling. But then you feel bad about counting down the months or weeks or days because you realize that this is real life, and counting the days is like marching toward death.

Our last day in Waco was hard. It was our first home. Our home away from home, just the two of us, so far away from family and old friends. I stood in our empty living room, scanning memories, trying not to cry, trying not to think of bringing our kids to this apartment some day to reminisce. I spent a few minutes in each empty room, saying goodbye, savoring last glances. I stood for awhile at the doorstep, and wouldn’t let Daniel get in the car until we took lots of final photos.

We drove our packed-to-the-brim car and van to Seth and Julie’s house, for our final Waco moments. It was a Wednesday. It was Bible study. I tried being present in that hour, tried forgetting that in an hour and a half, this would be the past, and we would be on the road. I scanned the room: Seth, Julie, Cameron, Wendy, Heather, DeAnn. Our lovely friends who I was hoping very much could just get inside our “materials.” Our luggage.

In some ways, it was a blessing driving two separate vehicles from Texas to Indiana. We stood in Seth and Julie’s drive, hugged our friends, and hit the road. In another car, Daniel didn’t have to listen to me crying. I cried our entire way out of the city, out of the county. At stoplights I took photos of street signs. I resented every turn away from the place, and looked in my rearview mirror maybe too often, too long, to be responsible. I prayed, and dripped down my chin, into my lap, thanking God for such a place. For great friends. For an amazing first home. For a church under a bridge (which we also drove past, where I probably nearly collided with a car or a pole for craning my neck in goodbye).

This is why relationships are hard. Sometimes it seems like maybe it would be easier if you just didn’t let yourself get too close. If you refused to become attached to people, because you knew what it would feel like to leave them.

I ran the 4 x 400 in track; I was the last runner, the closer. With just two seasons left in Ethiopia, I feel we’re at the point three or four strides away from the final curve of the track. After a few strides, it’s time to sprint. I know the loop well—we’re close, I can feel it. I partly envy the volunteers who really can’t wait to get out of this place. Who’ve felt this way from the moment they arrived. Who may not have friends, family really, as close as the Girimkils.

One of my best friends, Elizabeth, 2^nd grade sidekick through high school, sat at my kitchen table one night, maybe in 8^th grade. We were having a late night snack. She named her Pop Tart and started playing with it. A bit of time passed and she still hadn’t eaten. Well, I named it. She looked down at it, ashamed that her joke was becoming a little too real. It’s kinda hard to eat it after that. People can get attached to anything. We attach, it’s what we do. It’s even crazier when it’s people. Relationships are hard in that way.

This is why I have to be present right now. As much as I try to brush it away, a time will come when we’re putting our last pieces of luggage into the college car. When I’m biting my lip, trying to look away so they don’t see, and have to physically pull myself around to give them final hugs. We’ll be a few bags of mini-pretzels and a few glasses of tomato juice deep before I can brush away the tears and start smiling about entering American airspace.

It’s not natural for me to live in the present. It’s natural for me to look ahead—to say in Waco, How can a place not have Autumn? I can’t wait until we’re back in the Midwest for Autumn. I can’t wait until we’ll live near family, and can have our parents over for dinner—and then be shocked, devastated, when it’s actually time to leave that place and go have Autumn at home. It’s illogical, maybe insane. I never learn.

So, knowing what I know about myself, I’m trying not to say I can’t wait to get home unless I couple it with We should ask Meron to play today. We’re really going to miss her.

Because, believe me, we will.